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Sacred Space – Denise Linn

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Denise Linn’s Sacred Space is a dense catalog of spiritual teachings and techniques for clearing the energies of your home and creating a place that nurtures and supports your daily life. It’s not encyclopedic but it comes pretty close. Linn, an American Indian, was run off the road and shot at the age of seventeen by some maniac bigot and had a near-death experience that changed her world. When she writes about what she saw and understood, the explanation sounds like a primer for quantum physics. But her instantaneous understanding of the interconnectedness of all things led her to study healing practices with a number of indigenous masters and that training is freely applied to this book about the presence and energies in a home.

The advice is very interesting and very good. Linn covers everything from setting an intention for clearing the space to what the numerology of your house means–mine indicates a large portion of abundance so I’m a little concerned about the numerology. But instructions for using fire to clear old stale energy, working with bells or drums, the use of color, purification with salt, ritual bathing and enlivening water with moonlight, sacred qualities in stones–all of it comes from traditional teachings in many cultures and it is fascinating.

Sacred Space is neither flaky nor hardcore. Linn shares what she knows but she doesn’t preach about it. She offers plenty of alternatives for each step of the practice and gentle advice about doing what speaks to you or feels comfortable. All the advice is environmentally sensitive–no surprise there–and there are even sections about calling on protective spirits, recognizing angels, discovering your power animal, and dealing with psycho-kinetic energy. To get all that this book packs in, I will have to read it again, this time with a highlighter and a handful of bookmarks.

I’ve been really drawn to change our iconic brownstone shoebox (as in small) apartment in some fairly dramatic ways lately. At the same time, we could use some major changes in our depression-plagued personal economy. If we are not separate from everything in the universe, then clearing out and cleaning up the energy in here might just accomplish an aesthetic and a pragmatic transformation. Sacred Space could be my cost-effective way to tap into the guidance of a master for banishing our demons, clearing out the last of the clutter, making room for what’s important and finding just the right shade of sunflower yellow for a wall I am painting in homage to Matisse.